My Princess

*THIS WAS A WRITING ASSIGNMENT FOR "MY WRITING TO BE READ" CLASS*

(aka rewrite a fairytale from another persons perspective)

They call me Dopey. That’s right. Dopey. It doesn’t make you sound wise like Doc’s name does. It’s not endearing like Happy or Bashful. You’d think that if one of us hated our names it would be Sneezy. Snot, blood-shot eyes, constant congestion. Truth is, he loves the attention of people always saying “Bless you!” Who doesn’t want people sending blessings all the time? If he really didn’t like his name he could take Claritin and they’d start calling him Mike again. It’s me. I’m the one with the problem. Dopey. Sure, I’m statistically everyone’s favorite dwarf, but not because I did something heroic. No. I make people laugh because I’m stupid. I’m liked because I’m the bald runt whose clothes are twenty times too big. Not smart. Not talented. Just... well... dopey. 

  It was an ordinary afternoon and we were marching back from the mines. It had been a bad day, because I tripped on my shirt more than usual and ended up swallowing three rubies and being run over by a jewel cart. I wanted nothing more than to dive under the covers of my little yellow bed and disappear. I ran ahead of the gang and slammed the front door. When I wheeled my knotted up face around, the most beautiful woman was standing there by the fireplace. She was holding a broom and the entire inside of our cottage looked absolutely pristine. Out of her glittering red lips spilled the most joyous giggle. She smiled with teeth that looked like the night stars and shook her silky black hair at me. She said, “Are you the little man who lives here? Did you make this mess?” The insides of my mouth turned into jelly, and I couldn’t do anything but let my shoulders slump lower and lower. Her porcelain-doll-like hand brushed my sooty cheek. Her skin! It looked like powdery slopes of a wintery mountain the morning after a blizzard. Fresh. Clean. Perfect. She was perfect. 

  She cocked her head and raised her eyebrows in expectation of my answer. My big ol’ mouth smooshed around and finally said, “You look like you are snow.” Who says that?! Why did I just say that!? She let another golden laugh slip out and told me I must be very clever because her name was in fact, Snow White. 

  Every morning I would get up early and help Snow White set up for breakfast. I wanted time alone with her, just to watch her hum to herself as she lit the fire. She would tell me her secrets. I was the only dwarf who really knew why she was hiding out in our dingy little cottage. She didn’t want anyone to know she had barely escaped an axed woodsman the day she showed up. Sometimes she told me happy secrets-- like her dreams of receiving the most precious present of all-- true love’s kiss. She said that it was so powerful that it could bring the dead back from the grave. She said she dreamt of a man every night but didn't know if it was all her imagination or if maybe there was a chance that he was a real person somewhere out there. She said he was tall, with brown hair, and he rode a giant white horse. She said he was always wearing a long red cape and carrying a sharp silver sword at his side. 

I was the closest (human) soul Snow White had ever had to a best friend. I listened and held her hand when she would cry about having such a terrible step mother and never seeing her real parents again. I was even taking lessons from her on how to speak to the birds! Snow White was my world and will always have my heart. Now I know what you are thinking-- I’m not tall, I don’t have hair, and I don’t think I could put a saddle on a horse, much less ride one. So what. I’m don’t look like the prince that visits Snow White’s dreams every night. All I can say is that she’s... my princess. 

One day I tried to tell her. Every morning we would line up in our formation to march to the mines for work and Snow White would kiss each of us on the head. I don’t know if it was spring air or the birds that were all screaming at me to “TELL HER!” that gave me courage, but I decided I absolutely could not stand her not knowing a moment longer. She gave me my peck on my bald head and thats when I decided to run back to tell her. I cut the line, right between Happy and Sneezy, but when I got up to her again I got jello-mouthed again. I think she just assumed I was being dopey and holding up the rest of the group. I tried again and again and I finally gave up and decided to tell her directly that evening, first thing! 

   When we came back, she was splayed out on the floor. Absolutely cold. No breath filed in and out of her nostrils. Next to her was lying an apple with a perfect little bite taken out of it. Doc identified it as poisoned. Of course. Of course it was poisoned.

  He said that there was nothing we could do. The next day we laid Snow White in a casket of glass and laid her in the sunny patch of the most beautiful meadow. I lay awake that night heart stricken. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t do anything except think of my poor princess. Then it hit me. 

I ran to  the meadow right as the sun was rising. I used all my strength to slide the top off of her glass coffin. My head barely poked over the top, so carefully climbed up and lowered myself in to lay down next to her. She was freezing, but this just had to work. “It could even make the dead rise from their graves.” I gingerly laid my lips on hers. Nothing. I stroked her hair and shifted my weight. I needed to kiss her the way I felt about her. I kissed and kissed. My warm breath sticky and thick on her stoney lips. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. 

I got out of the coffin and laid down on the grass. Letting my tears weave their way through the blades of grass. I pounded my fists on the soil. Why? Thump. Why? Thump. Why?Thump. I stopped and let the fatigue pump though my achy arm. But, the thumping still sounded. Thump. Thump. Thump. It sounded and sounded and began getting louder and louder until I forced my drowning eyes to look up. There, flashing through the trees was a man with a red cape and a white horse. I squinted and saw a sword glinting in the warm mornings rays. I stood up and wailed. I wailed and wailed and wagged my hands up in the air wildly. His horse stopped and turned around. 

It took me a while to convince him to kiss a dead girl. Dwarfs hardly ever cry and they never beg. I suppose it’s hard to say no to a defeated dwarf begging on his knees. He eventually gave in. 

He easily stooped over her face and gave her a lingering peck. I flinched, not able to bear the sight, but she opened her eyes. She smiled her smile of stars. She smiled and swung her arms around his neck and kissed and kissed and kissed him again. He picked up my weak Snow White and cradled her in his strong, normal sized arms. 

Well you know the rest. Happily ever after and all. But not for me. Sometimes your not your true love’s true love. Sometimes she goes and moves away and gets married to a tall rich man who owns a castle. Sometimes you lay your heart out on the lovely snow, but spring comes and whisks it down a river to be lost somewhere deep in the ocean. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes you are just... dopey.